Justice Hall - Laurie R. King [171]
Then, seeming loud against the whip of the flames, came a small metallic noise from off to my right, a noise that would have been inaudible inside the house or had a wind been blowing, but a noise that broke the stillness of the roof-top like the gunshot it preceded.
Ivo Hughenfort was enough of a soldier to react to the sound of a rifle bullet being chambered behind his back. He jerked, half turning; I darted forward, but before I had taken two steps, the rifle went off with a flash that imprinted the stark image on my retinas: one man in the instant the bullet took him, a man and a boy behind him, braced for battle. Hughenfort and his gun both landed on the snow-muffled leads, and then I was on him, tumbling him face-first onto the snow. He struggled, but in a moment the rifle’s barrel was pressed into his cheek; when I looked up, I was somehow not surprised to see Iris, murder on her face and her finger ready on the trigger.
Mahmoud had not moved from his position in front of the boy. He had been closer than I to the revolver, close enough to dive for Hughenfort’s feet and grapple for the gun. Had the child not been present, I knew, he would not have hesitated an instant; instead, he had stayed where he was, using his broad body to block the young duke from a bullet.
Seconds later, Ali and Holmes erupted from the door onto the roof. Ali was all in favour of tossing his cousin over the side, giving to Hughenfort the fate he had intended for the child; it was Mahmoud who restrained him.
Instead, we handed Ivo Hughenfort over to Mycroft’s men for safe-keeping, to bind his bleeding shoulder and spirit him away to London.
And then we went back to the ball.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
On the twentieth of December, the Thursday after the fancy-dress ball that shook an Empire, Iris, Holmes, and I took the train from London to Arley Holt. A car met us at the station to transport us through the wintry countryside to Justice Hall. The house was silent, restored to its alabaster splendour but cavernous in its absence of family, and we took our subdued evening meal before the fire in the so-called library.
Afterwards, Iris settled with a book while Holmes went to wheedle the crypt key from Ogilby (a very hang-dog butler, who had taken the treachery of the maid Emma personally). I knew that if I went down with him, I should find myself pulling up Mediaeval tiles with my bare fingers, so instead I wandered the room, looking closely at the collections of artefacts assembled from the house and grounds: Roman coins, Saxon axe-head, a clot of woven reeds that I decided had been a sandal. Twice servants came in to ask if we needed anything, and we sent them away. With the police gone, the excitement over, the house clear of Egypt, and the family gone to the London house for the Christmas festivities, the remaining Justice staff was sleepy and bored.
The Darlings had packed up and driven away the day after the ball, prematurely scattering the guests and taking with them Helen, Ben, Gabe, and most of the servants. Marsh and Alistair went with the family to see them settled in, and had then mysteriously vanished.
Iris abandoned her book to stare into the flames. After a while, she asked, “What do you think are the chances of Ivo’s trial?”
I sighed deeply, and returned a scrap of elegant Samian ware back to its shelf. “He’s claiming that he was rescuing the boy from falling off the roof. That the children were playing hide-and-seek, that he saw Gabe dash through the door that opened onto those stairs, that he went after him to bring him back to safety, and that his holding a gun on Mah—on Marsh was the same thing: that he believed the child was being